At 11:42 AM 2/10/99 PST, Yaron Goland wrote:
>Jim, the source of your confusion is that the spec doesn't do a good job of
>defining how we use the value argument in defining XML elements.
No, the source of my confusion is that the spec uses inconsistent language.
The description of the link XML element clearly says the src and dest XML
elements contain href XML elements, not PCDATA.
Description: The link XML element is used to provide the sources and
destinations of a link. The name of the property containing the link
XML element provides the type of the link. Link is a multi-valued
element, so multiple links may be used together to indicate multiple
links with the same type. The values in the href XML elements inside
the src and dst XML elements of the link XML element MUST NOT be
rejected if they point to resources which do not exist.
If you agree that this is inconsistent, then why not change it?
I suggest we just drop the last sentence altogether.
We don't need the prohibition about not rejecting the property if the
resources don't exist because:
1. It's just common sense. WebDAV applications shouldn't routinely
dereference these URIs (in order to check whether they exist), and indeed
there might be bad security implications if they did.
2. The prohibition applies to all places src and dst might be used, not
just in link.
3. It applies in general to other properties whose value is a URI. Lock
tokens are URIs one can't dereference.
If you insist on keeping it, then move it to the descriptions of src and
dst, to read:
The src/dst XML elements MUST NOT be
rejected if the URI they point to does not exist.
unless there really is some reason that this applies only to their use
within a link element, and not elsewhere.